Lately I have gotten a lot of questions about how a single candle can cause such large scale fires. Well, the truth of the matter is, that almost all fires start out small. And the single flame of a candle is very capable of starting any nearby combustible on fire and then the fire grows from there and the rest, as they say, is history. The “Big Three” for starting fires are: Cooking, Improperly Discarded Smoking Materials and Candles. If we could, as a society, wipe out those three causes we could eliminate probably 90% of all fires.
Below is a picture taken at a house fire in Chanhassen, this past weekend. It was Sunday evening and temps were already below zero, cold temperatures make a fire fight especially challenging. Equipment and people freeze up quickly so fire crews need to be rotated faster than normal. Eden Prairie along with Victoria, Excelsior and Chaska assisted Chanhassen.
The house suffered major damage and the preliminary cause appears to be, yes you guessed it, candles. I have written about this topic before, but it bears a review since the same causes keep dominating the list of why fires start. This is not new news but the same old news repeated time and time again across the Country. Think about what you can do to avoid becoming a contributor to the “Big Three” and take action.
